


Infinite Chances

by kbecks87



Category: Dawson's Creek
Genre: 'jacey', (A.K.A the prom redux episode), Cannon compliant, Episode tag for 6X18 (Love Bites), F/M, Gen, Joey centric, One Shot, PJO
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-10
Updated: 2021-01-10
Packaged: 2021-03-14 20:35:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28676793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kbecks87/pseuds/kbecks87
Summary: Pacey/Joey. Episode tag for 6X18 (Love Bites) (A.K.A the prom redux episode). Cannon complaint. One shot. PJo / Jacey.What happens when Joey leaves Eddie's thinking about how she and Pacey left things at the dance
Relationships: Joey Potter/Pacey Witter
Comments: 4
Kudos: 24





	Infinite Chances

She takes a taxi home from Eddie’s, he tries to give her a ride – offers over and over – but she wants to clear her head a little, so she declines, and kisses him before she gives the taxi driver her address. When she gets back to the dorm, she closes the door and leans heavily against it, letting herself slide down until she is sitting on the floor, legs folded underneath her. She glances over at Audrey’s bed, somehow sad and grateful that her roommate isn’t back yet in equal measure. She doesn’t want to explain what happened tonight, not yet, but she wouldn’t mind a sympathetic ear either…not that Audrey always fills that role.

With a sigh, she unfastens her shoes and tosses them in the general direction of her closet then pushes herself back into a standing position, hanging her coat on the back of the door the crossing over to the bulletin board of photos by her desk. She looks at the one of her and Eddie, taken at Hell’s Kitchen and smiles, before she tugs a folded-up piece of paper out of the crisscross design and opens it up; it is the ‘Class Couple’ page from her senior year yearbook – her pulling Pacey to some class, coffee in hand. She smiles sadly, tracing the shape of his face on the page. 

Before she’s’ thought it out or decided what she wants to say, or even contemplated if this is a horrible idea or not, she’s pulled her cell phone out and navigated to the speed dials. She presses the call button with his name highlighted without any consideration at all.

It rings three times and she hears him sigh as he picks up, “Yeah, Jo.”

The exhausted sound of his voice reminds her that she should have though this out before dialing. She glances at the clock by her bed – almost three in the morning – and winces, “Sorry, did I wake you?”

“No, I was up,” she nods a little, which is stupid because he can’t see her. A long beat passes, “you need something, Jo?” It’s not unkind, the way he asks it, she’d just gotten used to not needing a reason to call again.

“I was thinking,” she brings the yearbook page with her and sits on the bed, curling her feet under herself, “I don’t think we’re one of those couples that gets infinite chances.” She says in a rush.

She can almost see him, in her mind, running his hand over a now-nonexistent goatee. “I think that has been made clear, now, Potter.” She thinks he means it as one of his self-depreciating jokes, but even as that, it falls flat.

“No, no, what I mean is,” she pulls in a deep breath and winces, knowing she’s not explaining this well and trying to start over, “don’t you think it’s weird that after _everything_ senior year, we both ended up in Boston anyway?” she closes her eyes and wonders how much differently things might have played out if they’d known they were going to end up in the same city. “and then we just…we never really talked about I t.”

“What was there to say, Joey?”

She sighs, bites her lower lip, she doesn’t know if admitting this will implode whatever relationship they have left or not, but she does know that all of their subtext has never really gotten them anywhere but where they are, so she pulls in a deep breath. “You know, when I first saw you in that kitchen at Civilization, I thought maybe you were in Boston for me,” she shakes her head a little, sniffs, “it was stupid, I know, but I had this moment where I was _sure_ you’d come to Boston to be with me, But, then I told Jen I saw you, and…” she trails off, he knows the rest anyway.

“That’s not stupid, Jo” she can hear rustling on his side, like he is moving around.

“And then, it was like we decided that the most adult way to handle things was to pretend that we were never that serious…I mean we never really talked about everything that happened…how everything that seemed so solid came crashing down around us.” She smiles sadly, shaking her head a little. She wonders how different things might be right now if they’d had a real conversation about their relationship when he turned up in Boston instead of only referring to it with glib one-liners. She wonders why that felt like the only way to deal with it at the time.

Pacey is quiet on the other end and she sniffles a little, “You know, it’s funny…” she can feel her eyes welling up with tears and blinks, trying to keep them at bay, “somehow the story became ‘Joey broke Pacey’s heart’ I mean, Audrey at Christmas, that’s what she said.” She shrugs one shoulder, trying to force a nonchalance she doesn’t feel, “but you broke up with me, Pacey. I wanted so badly for it to work; I mean I thought -” she cuts herself off.

When they’d first walked into that decorated gym, Joey had been overcome with the memory of eighteen-year-old Pacey _I feel like I’m stupid and I’m worthless…when I’m with you, I feel like I’m nothing_ and with time and distance, she knows a lot of that wasn’t about her, but she knows she contributed to him feeling like that and she _never_ wants to make anyone feel that way, least of all Pacey. But she doesn’t know enough about how they got to that point, without her even noticing, to say it wouldn’t happen again.

“I didn’t mean for you to get blamed.” He says, quiet, “I didn’t know how to be with you then, Jo, I didn’t…” he trails off and sighs. “Look, all I want, really, is for you to be happy. So, if this Eddie guy -”

“This isn’t about Eddie” she cuts him off. She’d known, outside the gym that telling him Eddie was back would be enough if a blow that he’d stop giving her the selling points of their relationship – and she’d wanted so badly to say yes, she needed him to stop so she could think clearly. She does intend to see where things go with Eddie, but “this isn’t about him” she repeats, quieter. She knows in the back of her mind that Eddie does not treat her a well as she’d like and that he doesn’t _really_ understand her. And that, maybe, the fact that their relationship has an expiration date – that he is going to California in the fall and she is not – is what makes her so ready to move forward with him.

She blows out a long breath, “you know, earlier, when I said I don’t think we get infinite chances?”

“Yeah”

“I guess what I meant was that,” she swallows “at the dance, when you said that this could go anywhere, that this could be it,” she closes her eyes, gathering her courage. “Pacey, I’ve felt like that since the moment I stepped on the True Love, since the moment we sailed into a literal sunset together.” He makes a choked sound from the back of his throat and she wonders if he never knew she felt that way, hopes that isn’t the case. “But…but I don’t think this is our moment, Pace, and since,” she wipes at her eyes, “since I don’t think we get infinite chances, I don’t want to risk blowing it now…if it’s not our moment.”

It’s quiet for a long moment, both of them just listening to the other breath. “I think our moment will come” she whispers it like a confession, “I mean I hope -” she sniffles, clears her throat, “It might not always be exactly how you’d like, but I have always loved you, Pacey Witter.” She smiles, nostalgia mixing in with everything else she is feeling.

He clears his throat, and when he speaks his voice is thick with emotion, “I love you too, Josephine Potter.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Please comment!


End file.
